5. Increase and decrease in the number of meshes

This process is used exclusively for pick-and-place knitting, and in particular for production on straight-set machines.

To start with, the knitting is carried out with a given number of needles in action. If the shape to be produced requires the knitted fabric to be widened, two solutions are possible. When this enlargement is small, it's possible to change the length of yarn in a stitch (known as the absorbed yarn length or AYL). This is what's applied, for example, to the upper part of socks, whose circumference varies between the ankle and the calf. In this case, the mechanical behavior of the knitted fabric varies as a function of the LFA